Hello,
One of the “joys” of living in Pennsylvania is the requirement of an
annual car inspection. All in all,
I don’t suppose that it is a bad idea in that it keeps the roads safer and the
air cleaner, but this morning as I sit in a coffee shop….now for over four
hours….the burden of the inspection is beginning to outweigh its benefits.
I got up on my day off at 7:00 to take my car in for its appointment,
which was to take less than an hour.
After I dropped my car off, I walked over to the local coffee shop for a
bite to eat and a cup of coffee.
True to their promise, I got a call on my cell phone before an hour had
passed. The call, however, came
with some bad news. My car had
failed! One rear passenger tire
was too worn. Judged unworthy of
travelling the roads of Pennsylvania, I needed to get the tire changed, and for
that matter the other three were nearing the same judgment. The advice: change them all.
“What is that going to cost?” I
said.
“Let me do some checking and I’ll get
back to you,” said the mechanic back to me, which soon he did. The news was a
bit of a jolt to my pocketbook, but a blow my pocketbook had no choice but to
suffer.
Well, now it has been over 4 ½ hours since I dropped my car off, and the
coffee shop has rotated through several rounds of customers and the afternoon
staff has come in to work….and still I await my car. If I would have known that it would have amounted to this, I
certainly wouldn’t have so cheerfully gotten up on my day off, and if there
would have been a way to avoid this inspection (but there is not), I certainly
would have taken that option.
When I talk to people who don’t attend worship on Sunday morning (and
they usually bring up the topic when they discover that I am a pastor), they
often say, “Well, I’ve been working so hard, and Sunday is my only day to sleep
in.”
To date,
I haven’t really known how to respond.
But today, as I sit in this coffee shop, I think I may have come to a
deeper understanding of those who offer me this common response for not coming
to church. Maybe they have
experienced worship to be akin to this mandatory car inspection. Scheduled on one’s day off. Slicing into coveted sleeping
time. Eating into the day’s plans. Nit-picking for faults, and pronouncing
failure, and resulting in a wounded pocketbook. If that is the experience that they have had with the
church, as I continue to wait for my car in this coffee shop, I can understand
their reticence to come to worship every week.
For me, though, that is not my experience of worship, nor is it the
experience that I hope to facilitate at the church where I am a pastor. When I go to worship, I don’t go in
response to a mandate for inspection for spiritual roadworthiness. Instead, I go to worship at the
invitation of the one who invites jalopies like me to come in and go for a spin
on the track that he has laid down for me, a track where my worldly jalopy is
transformed into a Nascar racer. A
Nascar racer where I can feel the power of a divine engine whirring and
purring. A Nascar racer where the
tires grip the road going around corners as if they were suction cups, and the
steering wheel responds with minute precision. A Nascar racer that makes my heart pump a little faster and
my smile a little wider. The
worship hour that I experience, and I hope to create, is a bunch of laps on a
track that no track and no car in the world can possibly give.
And when I am done with my time on the holy track and set myself back on
the roads that brought me to church, the thrill of the worship ride lingers
on. The jalopy of my life seems to
have a little bit more get up and go, and the curves don’t seem so
harrowing. The humm of the engine
purrs with the transcendent melody of the tunes of worship, and when the world
laughs at me for my car and my driving ability the roar of the angels cheering
from the heavenly stands during my spin in worship drowns out the world’s
jeers.
Some Sunday’s worship is more thrilling than others, but every Sunday’s
worship sets me in a car and on a track that the world cannot lay down. So, even on the blandest of Sunday
worship rides, I venture back into the world with a renewed vision and
purpose. Let me share Jesus’
invitation to you to come to
worship this Sunday….and every Sunday…..not for a judgmental inspection….but
for the ride of your life…actually for the ride of eternal life!
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace, (GGAP),
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
p.s. – I finally picked up my car at 1:30, my wallet
lightened by several hundreds of dollars!
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